Santa Fe, New Mexico – July 4, 2018: Father walks hand in hand with his daughter while enjoying her 4th birthday … [+]
Receiving physical contact, whether from another human or an animal, reduces anxiety, depression, and even pain in adults and children, according to the results of a recent meta-analysis and review of 212 studies. Helpful.journal nature human behavior.
“The sense of touch is extremely important to many aspects of our lives. It is the first of all senses to develop in newborns and the most direct contact with our physical and social environment. “Complementing our own touch experiences, we regularly receive touch from those around us, for example through consensual hugs, kisses, and massages.” said lead author Julian Packheiser of Ruhr University in Bochum and colleagues in their study.
“For example, the most common touch interventions, such as massage for adults and kangaroo care for newborns, have a wide range of benefits for mental and physical health across the lifespan, from promoting growth and development to alleviating anxiety and stress. have been shown to be the same in humans and animals,” the researchers added.
To further explore the health benefits of physical contact, the research team conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 212 studies involving a total of 12,966 people through October 2022. Their analysis looked closely at the effects of interactions between humans with and without skin. Contact with skin. The majority of touch interventions in these 212 studies consisted of massage therapy for adults and kangaroo care (referring to skin-to-skin contact with newborn babies) for newborns.
Researchers found that adults who underwent contact interventions with other humans experienced health benefits, but surprisingly, adults who received contact from a loved one or consensual physical contact from someone they didn’t know experienced health benefits. Taka observed that it didn’t matter.
“Touch interventions can be delivered by both familiar touchers (partners, family members, friends) and unfamiliar touchers (health care professionals). In adults, no effects of contact familiarity were found. “, the researchers pointed out. “Similarly, when we specifically investigated the effects on mental and physical health benefits, we detected no significant differences, suggesting that familiarity is irrelevant in adults.” , touch given to newborns by parents (almost all studies include only touch by mothers) was significantly more beneficial compared to unaccustomed touch.
For adults, 20 minutes of consensual body touch and four touch interventions spaced an average of 2.3 days apart were associated with improved mental health, researchers found. Studies have shown that the duration of touch in newborns was 17.5 minutes, the ideal number of touch interventions was 7 sessions, and the average interval between each session was 1.3 days. “Which touch intervention is applied seems to be less important, but the frequency of the intervention seems to be important. A higher number of sessions leads to improvements in traits such as depression and anxiety in adults, as well as improvements in traits such as depression and anxiety. A positive correlation was also found for pain reduction. In contrast to the number of sessions, increasing the duration of individual sessions did not improve health outcomes,” the researchers explained.
“When it comes to body parts that are touched, we found that touching the head had significantly higher health benefits than touching the arm. Touches to the head, such as face and scalp massages, were particularly beneficial. “There may be,” they added.
“Our study shows that touch interventions are optimal for reducing pain, depression, and anxiety in adults and children, and increasing weight gain in newborns,” the researchers concluded. Masu.
